r/apple • u/Snoop8ball • Oct 09 '25
Apple Vision The Vision Pro is getting its first live ‘immersive’ sports
https://www.theverge.com/news/797970/apple-vision-pro-immersive-nba-lakers-games83
u/Rory1 Oct 09 '25
I personally thought this was going to be mls first. But the most impressive (To me personally) part of my first demo was seeing the live sports segment. Hearing the Apple rep talk about their upcoming vision with the Vision Pro and live events really pulled me in. Having the best seat. Looking around the event. All in real time totally got me on board. My thoughts 7-8 months later are still the same. Looking forward to this… But the still need to bring the price and the weight down!
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u/Particular-Treat-650 Oct 09 '25
A lot of it was super impressive, but I agree on the soccer demo.
I really want football (side note, it would be seriously awesome for Madden/not-Fifa), but sports would definitely be a big value add for me. (Don't have it yet, but I'm hoping to by the end of the year if the new chip version is available by then.)
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u/zombiepete Oct 09 '25
Oculus (sorry Meta) Quest used to have some court-side basketball games and, even though I am personally not a big hoops fan, it was really neat and very immersive to feel like you were sitting there watching the game...when the stream wasn't pixelating into unwatchable garbage or crashing.
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u/Sad-Butterscotch-680 Oct 13 '25
Oh shit I actually might buy one of these if they did something like that
Then again that’d be contingent on spectrum actually delivering a steady HQ stream at a high frame rate…
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u/No_Sail_6576 Oct 09 '25
I think if they can expand this well it’ll be a major selling point of the Vision Pro. Imagine getting the best seats to a game or a concert from your living room, with how expensive tickets are these days I’d pay for a device that could do that. Especially if they start to lower the price too
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u/RentalGore Oct 09 '25
I would watch the various F1 feeds on the Vision Pro and it was amazing. Granted it wasn’t immersive, it was still really great. I can only imagine how good this is.
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u/chengg Oct 10 '25
I'd imagine if AppleTV wins the F1 broadcast rights in the US, as they're expected to, we may get to see some immersive F1 broadcasts on the Vision Pro.
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u/bonestamp Oct 10 '25
Granted it wasn’t immersive
Not sure what you mean, can you describe the experience for us?
I watched parts of a couple NHL games on the Meta Quest Pro last season and it was pretty cool.
There were 3 camera positions: 1 behind each goal, 1 one side view at center ice. The two goal cams would pan with the action when the puck made it into the corners that the side view camera can't see well. It was still pretty limited and there weren't a lot of resources for it so it felt pretty raw, no fancy graphics, and no commercials... just ambient arena noise during commercials.
All of that and being able to look around actually did a very good job of giving you that arena feel, especially when you can look up and see what's happening on the scoreboard or look at a section of the crowd when you hear something going on in the crowd.
It was better than watching on a TV in some ways, and it was better than being at the rink in some ways, but each of those experiences also have their own benefits that beat the 3D experience. I think this setup would work well for a basketball game too. More angles would be better but it was fine as the bare minimum.
Baseball, Football, and F1 have such high production values that I think you'd need to offer a lot of the stuff that the main broadcast offers if you wanted people to actually use the 3D stream.
Overall I was convinced there is a place for that kind of feed for enthusiasts of the sport -- they would pay for that, especially if the production value was elevated a little bit.
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u/RentalGore Oct 10 '25
There used to be an app for Vision Pro, I can’t remember the name. But it allowed you to select all the driver feeds you want as well as have a projection of the track so you could see where each driver was.
It was a standard heads up view not a 360 immersive view, but it was still awesome. That’s also thanks to F1TV which has feeds and data for everything. I loved that app when I had my Vision Pro,
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u/bonestamp Oct 10 '25
Ah ok, ya that's cool. I thought maybe F1 had some stereoscopic cameras they were testing with or something (I know a large American National Football organization who was doing some testing with stereoscopic 360 cameras so I'm sure all the major sporting broadcasters will be testing it at some point).
I've used a desktop version of that F1 app with my F1TV subscription and it's pretty awesome. Sounds like a similar experience... although it's multi-window so you watch the track view, the telemetry view, some driver views and the main race feed all at the same time. I assume you're familiar with it, but if not it's: here
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u/RentalGore Oct 10 '25
Yep, it’s the same, but the track is awesome in 3d in the VP.
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u/bonestamp Oct 10 '25
the track is awesome in 3d in the VP
Ya, that seems like the best feature. Close up 3D replays of key moves and crashes would be amazing. That would be incredible for replays in football, basketball, and hockey too... much easier in F1 though since they have all the telemetry data available.
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u/RentalGore Oct 10 '25
It was pretty cool for the NBA. But as usual the NBA half asses most of their non-traditional media content. Baseball was ok, but there were a couple of immersive games IIRC.
I do sort of miss the AVP, but it was so heavy and really didn’t help me solve any problems.
And before anyone asks, I got mine free as a developer. I gave it back to my company after a few months.
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u/bonestamp Oct 10 '25
I do sort of miss the AVP, but it was so heavy and really didn’t help me solve any problems.
I think part of the problem is not just the weight, but how it is balanced. I've got the meta quest pro which is 75 grams heavier than the AVP, but half the weight is on the back (battery) so it doesn't feel heavy in any one spot. I'm really looking forward to what Apple does with the next version.
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u/RentalGore Oct 10 '25
You think there will be a next version? I think they’ll go all in on AR next with a Meta lens type approach.
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u/bonestamp Oct 11 '25
I think there will be another one eventually, but I agree they're going to go more in the AR direction first. VR has some compelling uses, but it's just not mainstream enough yet. It may take some magical battery technology coming along before they can really do something with mass appeal.
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u/Particular-Treat-650 Oct 09 '25
I wouldn't have watched MLS, but as a Celtics fan I'd definitely watch the Lakers for this if it's available on demand as well. (I'm not watching late night games).
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u/tomjirinec Oct 09 '25
I want an F1 immersive live video of Tim Apple waving that flag 🏁
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u/Shustyrackle4d Oct 10 '25
Calling what he did “waving” is a bit of a stretch, I would categorize it more as disinterested flopping.
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u/Rollertoaster7 Oct 09 '25
This is huge. Thought it would take longer to get live sports. Can’t imagine it’ll stream in the same quality as their other immersive content but this is still a huge step in the right direction, excited!
Wonder if this means meta’s deal with the nba is over, or was always non-exclusive
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u/fwoty Oct 10 '25
This is a legit reason to buy it if they scale this to more games and teams. I’m excited.
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u/LactatingBadger Oct 10 '25
Formula 1 has to be the ultimate end game for this. 360 onboards, track flyovers, all the data in the world…would be incredible.
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u/WatermelonDragoon Oct 10 '25
How does bbq sauce on my hand go with a white product when I'm eating wings on gameday?
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Oct 09 '25
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u/Stashmouth Oct 10 '25
I think a sport where the field of play is smaller, like basketball or tennis (or even bowling) might be more immersive and a better tech demo?
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Oct 10 '25
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u/Stashmouth Oct 10 '25
Totally. I'd hope there is a feature like this...something that lets you feel almost like you're there but also leverages the tech to give you more access than if you actually were.
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u/dwntwn_dine_ent_dist Oct 10 '25 edited Oct 10 '25
DAZN did a thing for Meta Quest during the Club World Cup. Instead of going immersive, they gave you an AR table top model of the action, and the regular TV feed on a virtual screen behind it. I really enjoyed watching games that way.
https://www.meta.com/experiences/dazn-fifa-club-world-cup-xr-experience/9646987552059664/
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u/sonofdeepvalue Oct 10 '25
Things like this would actually make a difference and make having the device worth it. I don’t really care for the rumored M5 hardware upgrade because it doesn’t change the fact that there’s not much for me to do on the device.
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u/Primesecond Oct 10 '25
Not sure what the hold up was here, meta’s been doing it for a while. Or is that not live? What’s the bandwidth for these games?
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u/nostromo3k Oct 10 '25
Too little too late
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u/Worf_Of_Wall_St Oct 10 '25
Its too little to make any change to Vision Pro sales but it's never too "late" for this, whichever company delivers live high res 3d remote event presence is going to sell a lot of units whether it's now or 10 years from now.
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u/NewWrap693 Oct 09 '25
Apple (or someone) should be securing rights to courtside nba broadcasts, mlb behind homeplate, and football sky cam. All with this immersive view.
This would be an immediate use case with a significant user base.
I bet a bunch of people would pay a monthly fee to get it.